Really fun to play with. Great work!

Classic web shit. Nice.

Definitely kept me on the page, very cool.

If it could move with a mobile device’s gyroscope, that would be quite the amuse-esprit.

[delayed]

The revenge of Compiz Wobbly Windows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbCg9_YgKgM

As you can surmise from the domain, this is created by Mr Doob. They're most well known for creating the 3D JavaScript library Three.js: https://threejs.org

Their full site and a lot more cool stuff they've made can be found here: https://mrdoob.com

Or, best known to others as being the guy that made Gravity Google way back when.

I thought it was Doobs, aka Penis Anthony Doubineux.

[delayed]

"They"? It's a guy.

It won’t mind.

Useful!

There are a lot of opposition-worthy linguistic acrobatics within that space, but default they/them is none of them.

It works perfectly. It is inoffensive, a drop-in-replacement, doesn't elongate sentences or any other such negative side effects.

It's real known words not just freshly invented. And it's even semantically correct.

The they/them swap is the most elegant implementation I am aware of.

> The they/them swap is the most elegant implementation I am aware of.

Far from it, it only creates confusion and injects ideologically charged "pronoun language" into the discussion. If you feel the need to make clear that yes, the person you're talking about can be a man as well as a woman - something which most people realise and the ones who don't won't anyway no matter which words you use - use something like s/he or "he or she". The first form is just as short, is not ideologically charged and does not create ambiguity.

What confusion does it create?

You may genuinely not know the gender of an online nickname, and, frankly, you also don't really have to know? Why share this metadata in the first place.

I kinda see your point regarding "it pulls in culture war", but, to be fair, it's "they/them". Language that - in this very usage - predates the culture war by centuries.

So.. idk I think you might be wrong here.

"They" is plural AND singular. Obviously it creates confusion.

Fair pushback, however, again, I would ask to which degree and to what end.

"There is an entity named doob, and they are responsible for this thing" at least to me kinda solves the exact thing (attribution, "where to ask with questions") it needs to solve, while simultaneously encoding the least amount of metadata possible.

In this case it could be plural though. Very much so.

Unless they are non-binary? But in some languages you'll still run into trouble. In Italian, if your masculine, it's non-binario, and if you're feminine, it's non-binaria.

> In Italian, if your masculine, it's non-binario, and if you're feminine, it's non-binaria.

Haha what the fuck. Who implemented that oh my god.

Genuine question though. That cannot be grassroots, can it? Because it completely defeats the purpose of that. Did this just come up because someone _had_ to translate the english culture war during news reporting?

It reminds me of the atheists of northern Ireland getting asked, yes but which atheist are you, Catholic or protestant?

It was implemented when gendered languages developed a few thousand years ago, neutral words in english (binary) are gendered in other languages (e.g.: binario/binaria in spanishas well). Americans tried to fix the issue for latinos/latinas by coming up with latinx/latine and similar modifications to gendered spanish words, but it was wholly rejected by actual latin-americans.

Prefer harmless confusion to harmful intolerance

Intolerance of what? The term is used here because the person can be either male or female. S/he does that job just as well without creating confusion.

His brand is literally "Mr Doob"

The consensus in English-writing guides like the APA or Elements of Style is about staying true to a person's self-identified pronoun while preferring specificity over ambiguity. In a case where you don't know - "they" is perfectly acceptable. In a case where "they" is an explicit self-identity - it's the only correct option. In this case, where he literally calls himself "Mr", it's stylistically incorrect to choose a more ambiguous pronoun where "he" is the correct one for someone calling themselves "mr"

Hm. Interesting argument, but I kinda disagree with the premise that "if we have anything exposing gender metadata, the rest of the language around it in a sentence must be pulled into referencing that to be more correct".

It's a coherent thing to argue for, I'll give you that, but it's also.. kinda arbitrary? And one can make an equally convincing case for statelessness in the sense that just because one word carries metadata, doesn't mean that the other words around it must react to it.

You're making a straw-man argument with "anything exposing gender metadata". It's not like I dug up some obscure article - it's literally his chosen brand name. There's nothing arbitrary to use "he" for somebody who calls himself "mr".

Is it possible that you have a good point about inclusive writing in general, but you just happened to hop on the wrong case to make your stand, didn't realize that we're talking about an explicit "mr"?

Huh?

Isn't a strawman something I would make up that you would have said to then attack it?

[delayed]

Uh, okay, but, how do you just disagree with an idea then?

The idea being

> it's stylistically incorrect to choose a more ambiguous pronoun

And my disagreement being with the assessment that it is "incorrect". It's not. That's an arbitrary choice and pointing to "authorities" there changes nothing about the arbitrary-ness.

In fact, I went all in on good faith there by validating that idea as one coherent way to see this topic.

I just fundamentally disagree with it and brought forward my equally valid and coherent way to see this topic.

Which got countered with a "this is just a strawman" (which is false, as that is not how strawmans work) followed by a direct attack

> but you just happened to hop on the wrong case to make your stand, didn't realize that we're talking about an explicit "mr"?

And now you show up and.. uh.

Yeah anyway. The direct attack there alone is enough to lose any moral highground. So even if I had been doing what I was accused of (which I clearly did not), that would be a less worse offense?

Idk.

If you ask me I am seeing people here, desparate to have a culture war discussion and force reality into their tiny little pre-defined shapes they have in their heads. Regrettably.

But I am only saying this now that the thread is already dead and I am not the one who killed it.

> And my disagreement being with the assessment that it is "incorrect". It's not. That's an arbitrary choice and pointing to "authorities" there changes nothing about the arbitrary-ness.

I don't see why de-gendering people would be less upsetting than gendering them correctly, and THAT is clearly seen as absolutely unacceptable by many. One can't claim a moral high ground if one is just as obnoxious as ones opponents.

I said:

> it's stylistically incorrect

Not grammatically, not factually - but stylistically.

I also said:

> In this case, where he literally calls himself "Mr"

Not all cases, not as a general idea, but rather when his self-identified pronoun is known.

You're free to ignore style guides, in fact you're free to write your own - but they generally agree that when a self-identified pronoun is known, it's clearer and better writing to use that specific pronoun rather than the ambiguous "they"

And r08064!

I opened that in a background tab and went "why does it sound like quake 1" - haha. This whole site has a bunch of awesome stuff on it, thank you for sharing.

Same vibe as 'Why do I hear boss music?'.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/why-do-i-hear-boss-music

the name is because it looks like someone wearing headphones - doob

> this is created by Mr Doob

I'm thankful for the work Mr Doob has done before, but this wasn't "created" by him.

It's AI output that he himself has published.

Love it, but I want to tear it in half!

`Unable to start: can't access property "getSupportedExtensions", this.gl is null`

Doesn't work on Firefox Mobile.

Works on iceraven on mobile for me.

Safari/Chrome on iPhone fail.

Wdym?

Works in Safari on my old iPhone 12 mini.

Works in Fennec (F-droid), doesn't work in Brave

You might have webgl disabled. In the URL bar:

about:config -> webgl.disabled: false

Actually works in Firefox Mobile for Android

Works over here on Firefox Mobile 159.0.1

Works on Firefox on iOS.

So squishy

I know no one stops you from using hashtag `codevember` on vibe coded project[0], but... isn't the whole point of these one month challenges(genuary, nodevember, inktober, etc) about human creativity? Like game jams?

[0]: https://x.com/mrdoob/status/2117561239249518650

I guess, but this isn't just some claude-kiddy, he's the creator of Three.js. it's like slamming Linus for using AI on the Linux kernel. He knows what he's doing.

I know who he is and I don't care what he does with ai.

To me these little challenges are about improving programming skills, showing creativity, and mostly just for fun. So using LLMs on 'codevember' feels weird. That doesn't mean I'm blaming him for it, I'm just having a hard time accepting it.

If coding is for you about writing beautiful code, then yes.

Many of us are in the game because of the love for building things.

> If coding is for you about writing beautiful code

...when did I ever said that?

What are you saying then?

And why are you implying that using AI does not improve those skills?

You can learn nothing or become a master both ways. AI will just give you some tangible results first but in the end it depends solely on you.

> What are you saying then?

I literally said that "I'm just having hard time accepting it."

> And why are you implying that using AI does not improve those skills?

I'm not.

So "hacker man yelling at the claude"

I can't understand how and why you keep thinking of things I never said or even remotely implied.

So you get the same joy from building things even when you outsource the "building" to some other person?

Not OP but if it comes to Claude or OpenAI use, that does make me roll my eyes.

That said, I use local AI on GPUs I own, so they are -my- tools on -my- property to help me research debug and help me execute my ideas faster than I could before, so more things get done than were done previously.

I keep my AI rack under my 3D printer because they are the same type of tool to me.

A big chunk of the software development industry is not typing code but figuring out what code to write in the first place.

If you want to draw out the construction analogy, ask a mason or carpenter if they'd rather be an architect. (a lot would probably not want to, but I know a few people in the trades that can do a lot more than just welding two pieces of steel together, it's just that their job is the welding part.

Actually this will be one of the challenges; LLM assisted coding has empowered people to be more decision makers, lead developers, architects, etc than code monkeys. But it's a pyramid, there's only so many lead developers you feasibly need on a project.)

> empowered people to be more decision makers, lead developers, architects

Add a "pseudo" before each and we would be in total agreement.

Do I get the same satisfaction from defining and directing a project that my team at work implements?

Yes. Writing code was always fun but running a project is itself a systems engineering problem. Especially if you’re the one defining project scope.

So yes, absolutely it is the same level of joy. The code I wrote was just the method needed to solve the low-level problem but it was never the entire problem space.

I can see my fingerprints all over the user facing design and I can see all the places where I agonized over different approaches to maximize user enjoyment. Seeing the solutions manifest is thrilling frankly. I see users of LLMs as filling a similar role to mine in this respect.

That said, I understand that not everyone enjoys the entirety of the problem space to the same degree and so I can see how a reasonable group of people might not find the higher-level puzzle as enjoyable as its low-level counterpart just as there are those who might find the low-level tedious instead of rewarding.

There is a point in the LLM usage spectrum where I feel that I am not really understanding the stuff I am creating. I can have the LLM write some code, without starting to feel this. But it is only a small amount of code...

Imagine you're getting an extension to your house. You might not be an architect, an electrician, a plasterer, a carpenter, an interior designer, a grounds worker, a gardener, a labourer or any other profession I've missed off (apologies) but you get a great sense of joy from designing and seeing your extension built.

You outsourced literally everything, you didn't lay a single brick, didn't calculate a single beams "load-bearing" capacity but at the end you have this awesome extension you can live in that brings you joy. There's going to be snags here and there as there always is with anything, even if you crafted and did it all by hand, but seeing it built and guiding and adapting things along the way is the fun part.

This analogy only makes sense if you think there is zero value in actually crafting something yourself.

The parent poster’s post is amusing because I did all of those things. I framed out an addition to my house. I demoed all of the living spaces, installed insulation, hung drywall, did the trim (which was difficult to learn!), installed windows. I also built a patio (with a shovel!), built a fence, planted an orchard, etc. I did these things because, although I have the money to pay others, it was 1) deeply satisfying and 2) I wanted it done right. I think lots of technical people think that we can’t do it right because it’s not our area but—if you care, you will do it right.

I hired somebody to do the toilets. Fuck that.

Writing software and having software running on a computer is not the point of all of this. The point is to then use these tools to improve your physical world outside of the computer, and to use the computer to improve your mind and then apply that to how you live in the physical living world. The computer is not your friend, your colleague, or your enemy, it's a screwdriver the over excited gave a celebrity complex.

yeah man the point of software development is to develop software that is useful, helpful, thoughtful, creative, productive, or just cool. For me and most non hardcore engineers like on hackernews, the outcome is all that matters.

Creativity is about coming up with your vision with the tools at hand in my eyes. I would still argue in situations like this you need a sense of style to understand what works and what doesn't.

I thought so too, but AI is kinda destroying everything fun. Game jams, Advent of code, code codevember apparently. To me personally it's super sad to see.

I agree given that it’s about competition and not just having fun.

Ugh, fun.

[delayed]

i don't care about leaderboards but i do care about the community of like-minded people that comes with these kinds of competitions, which AI larpers totally eliminate

i don't know, i vibe code a lot but could never come up with that. To me, it is pretty much human creativity.

[delayed]

The creativity space moves. Now, it has moved to how you use your tokens.

For some..

And some people still make stone tools as a creative pursuit. Everything is valid as creativity.

People still paint, despite photoshop. People still play instruments, despite Digital Audio Workstations.

There is art in the craft, and more importantly enjoyment in the craft.

I wouldn't AI generate a song because all of the fun for me and my friends is in the playing and watching. You will find that's true very often for creative people and those who enjoy their work.

Are you suggesting that artists who work primarily in Photoshop or DAWs aren't creative and/or don't have fun?

No

I see plenty of creativity on display here. I haven't seen anything like this and it was delightful. Also makes me want to explore more that I can do to create visualizations like this.

The fact that it was vibe coded matters very little to me. Gate keeping the concept of a codevember doesnt seem very codevember to me.

A lot of established engineers are using LLMs. I am not sure why that is still a stigma. Our industry is going through major changes, that is well established. I would be surprised if someone is not using LLMs to produce cool experiments.

> I am not sure why that is still a stigma.

> isn't the whole point of these one month challenges(genuary, nodevember, inktober, etc) about human creativity? Like game jams?

Human creativity goes into "what to build", not "how to build it".

A Photograph is, mechanically, 100% machine-created. But we still call photographers "creative" for their work on picking what to photograph, how to frame it, timing the shot, etc..

Honestly, I think it's wonderful that editors are finally getting some credit for the creativity they bring to the process. There's plenty of writing about how famous films like "Star Wars" often owe a lot to their editing, even though that traditionally doesn't get credited as "creative" work.

Is someone who commissions a painting considered creative?

Commissioning a painting, if it needs describing a scene, a thought or some direction, then yes.

This is literally what photographers do. Most do not even deal with exposure or any other setting. "Auto".

Revered photographers do a lot more than push a button. But I agree pushing a button and getting a result without much thought or effort generally doesn't make for an interesting creative work, most professional photographers would agree too

> Most do not even deal with exposure or any other setting. "Auto".

Professional ones, this is completely incorrect. Maybe hobbyists? But even then, not many.

Creativity is defined by what one did in the creative process, not whether you did something else outside of the creative process or not. I.e. if the only thing you do is say "make me a piece of art, I'll pay you $x" then you had 0 creative involvement. Not because you paid for it, but because of the lack of doing anything during the creation process.

The same is true of using any tool. If you just click a premade and generic "process photo" button in an image editor for every photo you get then you're doing no creative work (unless that whole action is a meta statement itself or something). If you mess with the different options and settings to find the one which matches your creative vision then you've played a part in the creative process.

> Human creativity goes into "what to build", not "how to build it".

I dont know if i've ever seen a message miss the point more than this one.

> Human creativity goes into "what to build", not "how to build it".

This is nonsense, right? If I decided "hey wouldn't it be cool if there was a really interesting painting of a dude" that isn't an interesting creative expression

Explore the editing angle: do you really think that absolutely nothing of artistic value would be lost if we just stopped editing films entirely? Or is it clear that an editor can bring value simply by offering input?

Certainly the extent of the input matters - "cool art of a dude" is a very generic concept, but at a certain point, just writing the idea down has to count as creative, because otherwise books are all uncreative.

> Explore the editing angle:

I am not ChatGPT, do not talk to humans like this

[delayed]

I've been thinking about this and it's still difficult to accept it. It feels like making generative ai art and posting it with hashtag inktober.

You could say that 'the artist' guided the genai to show creativity, ai is just a tool, and maybe the process helped improve their drawing skills.

Yes, I agree. It's just... maybe it's because I won't be amazed by coding challenge posts anymore like I used to, just like I'm not excited about hobby coding projects these days.

You do realize who this is, right? Do you know how many manually written jams/demos mrdoob has directly enabled by his three.js work? Can we please, please, try and fight the urge to driveby this sort of work?

That he did so much great work in the past makes it all the more depressing that he has gone full-on slopper.

Thta is oddly satisfying

When I grow up I want to be as intelligent and productive as Mr. Doob.

Now i want those jelly candies in plastic blisters.

Awesome! Not only that one can build this in JavaScript, but also that your browser on a mobile phone can render this.

I am a bit disappointed that it cannot fill entire screen because it disappears.

If you pause and the unpause after a while you get very pretty color bands! :)

Paste this in your browser console to support shearing https://dpaste.com/6C9TJVTS5

[delayed]

you can stop it in the settings by setting feed speed to 0

Or by pressing the spacebar.

I couldn't figure out why my PC was lagging so bad the last couple of days, then I remembered I left it running in a tab.

This is fun, but boy it gets heavy/laggy as it accumulates.

Or even before that. I'm on a M1 Ultra mac studio with 128G of RAM. I would have expected a lot more performance, but then I'm seeing a lot of conversation about codevember and AI use and yeah… this is a good part of that argument.

I feel like this is what you get when you don't codevember, but you had an idea that would be cool. I've never seen a HN 'show something cool that's a relatively simple visual hack that's also physics etc.' that chugged this hard on my machine. I'm not running anything else and I have 20 cores and RAM isn't going to pose any obstacle. It's not very performant.

Huh. I left it open on Firefox on an old i5 for probably > 5 minutes and while I did hear the fan come up it was nowhere near as bad as a video call.

Cool

I will give, for almost free, a nice consultancy to folks looking for the purpose in their lives.

I like this. Can I eat it?

AI slop on the front page of Hacker News.

I guess the great unwashed have finally won.

we could do this with flash 20 years ago, nice stuff tho

I'd prefer this over Liquid Glass for my phone UI

Start here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnJesHP5WEM

There's something incredibly satisfying about this